Christmas Day is just around the corner, so we’re pulling out the evergreens with this star-studded audio collection of memories, traditions, Christmastime favorites, and assorted Yuletide offerings!
Kix Brooks
Kix Brooks remembers the Christmas Eve when a call from his wife Barbara left him dashing through the snow for the birth of his daughter, Molly. (:46)
“My daughter, Molly, was born on Christmas Eve, which was just truly amazing. We were gettin’ ready to go to Louisiana, and the baby was due about three weeks later. She called me up and said, ‘I’m in labor!’ I said, ‘Well, what are you gonna do?’ She said, ‘Well, I’m gonna go home and get my suitcase packed and stuff like that.’ I go, ‘Awesome!’ You know? Because I was downtown, and the one thing I cared most about was drivin’ to the hospital. I mean, I’d waited my whole life to go as fast as I wanted, and if the cop pulls me over, I can go, ‘We’re havin’ a baby!!!!’ You know? That’s…(laughs)…so I did not want to miss that. So I flew home, you know, and, of course, she had, you know, another 10 hours, but I still drove, you know, 130 the whole way.”
Kenny Chesney
Kenny Chesney talks about a favorite holiday song from his youth that he later recorded — and he got to sing it with the original vocalist, Alabama’s Randy Owen. (:37)
“Growin’ up in the South, I can just remember hearin’ that a lot. I mean, every Christmas, you heard Alabama. You heard Randy Owen singing ‘Christmas in Dixie.’ And it was just one of those songs that…you know, my hometown radio station played every year. And I just always remember lovin’ that song, and then I got into the music business and was able to get to know Randy and Mark [Herndon], Teddy [Gentry], and Jeff [Cook]. They just mean so much to me. And you know, to have Randy come in and to lend his voice to one of my records was just an awesome feelin’. Somethin’ that I’ll be able to have forever. It’s pretty cool.”
Kenny Chesney recalls his contribution to a school Christmas play. (:23)
“I think one time I held the star, you know, and did it behind them. You know, I didn’t…never did show my face. I was holding the star going through the night. That’s all I did. I remember doing that one year. But all my other buddies was Joseph and Mary and all that stuff. I never did, really, get out on stage that much. Never really did sing in the Christmas play and…no, I was pretty scared to get up there then!” (laughs)
Tyler Farr
Tyler Farr shares his Christmastime movie favorites. (:12)
“Christmas Vacation, definitely. [A] Christmas Story is right up there. A new one that I like is Four Christmases. Gosh, that’s gotta be my favorite one.”
Tyler Farr is all about keeping it real when it comes to Christmas trees. (:25)
“Definitely a real Christmas tree guy. We went to Christmas Tree Lane — this place in Missouri — out in the middle of nowhere every year and cut down a Christmas tree. And I wanted the biggest Christmas tree, and I was all…every bit of 90 pounds, but I wanted to saw the thing down myself, and it never happened but, that’s one of the things that people don’t do a whole lot of anymore, but I’m a big real Christmas tree guy. I proudly endorse real pine…or spruce or cedar, whatever they’re made of.”
Tyler Farr recommends ground transportation…just in case your family gathering gets a little funky. (:15)
“You take the airplane, and you’re — I don’t care what happens — you are there ’til your flight’s ready to leave. And so that’s my holiday safety precaution there. When it really starts goin’ down, you gotta have a way out, so that’s my advice.”
Miranda Lambert
Miranda Lambert shows-off her softer side during the holidays. (:41)
“I love, love, love holidays. I mean, just, it’s my time to really be a girl. And I grew up, you know, with all the decorations and cookin’, and I get really domestic during holidays. And it’s kind of weird ’cause it’s so opposite of who I am on stage. But I love to bake cookies and cook dinner for the whole family, and I have every decoration you can think of. I like to have a tree in every room, and I mean, I really…that’s my time to just get ultra-girly, and I love holidays. And also it’s my time off usually, because there’s not really a lot going on during holidays, and so I really get to spend time with people I really care about.”
Jerrod Niemann
Despite his best efforts, Jerrod Niemann’s childhood home movies always resurface at the holidays. (:14)
“It’s weird, it’s sort of like, I burn these videos, these Christmas videos, so I don’t have to be humiliated by them anymore, but they somehow reappear the next year. I don’t know how, maybe my parents just make copies, it never dawned on me.”
Jerrod Niemann reveals his favorite holiday TV special. (:13)
“Well, my favorite Christmas special is Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, because I still haven’t figured out how they make those little creatures move, and I don’t know…I have always, like, it’s very comforting, the Christmas songs and the Christmas specials is their…just, they bring out the happiness in everybody.”
Jerrod Niemann is a great singer, but he’s no wrapper. (:35)
“I do try to wrap my own gifts, and I am totally a guy. I mean, I am sure some guys are good at that stuff, I just…I mean, I can’t even cut a straight line with scissors, and one time I got suckered into working at this clothing store for, like, the holidays when I was in high school, and they had me in the gift-wrapping area, and you should have seen these poor people when I handed them their gifts. I mean, as you can imagine, it looks like I purposely did it. I know when they got home they just re-wrapped them because it was hideous. And so my mom usually likes to wrap the present I get for people because she didn’t want the Christmas tree to look like it’s covered in trash.”
Jake Owen
Jake Owen says that “White Christmas” was a holiday fantasy where he grew up. (:27)
“Where I grew up in Florida, we didn’t have snowy white Christmases like you hear about. You know, it’s kind of weird. You grow up, and Christmas is always portrayed as this cold and snow-white (singing) ‘I’m dreaming of a white Christmas,’ all that stuff, and it’s like, I never got that. I never saw that growin’ up. I had palm trees, and it was always 72 or 75 degrees and sunny on Christmas Day where we were from, and you didn’t get to wear the Christmas sweaters and stuff like that. It was like, we didn’t have that.”
Brad Paisley
Brad Paisley says that the winter weather on the East Coast puts him in the holiday mood. (:27)
“No offense, folks, but California, for an Easterner like myself who is used to wintertime, you know what? I don’t love wintertime for most of it, but there are a couple of weeks in there when it’s kind of nice to have it when either it snows, or it’s cold out and it feels like Christmastime. Getting bundled up is part of the charm, and shorts and 80-degree weather is not conducive to some of the clothing that looks best…scarves and toboggans and whatever.”
Brad Paisley remembers trying to get the goods on Santa. (:26)
“One year I tried to figure out — it was about fifth or sixth grade, I think I was startin’ to…oh no, it was third or fourth grade — I was startin’ to get the hint that maybe there wasn’t a Santa Claus…which there is, by the way. But I wanted to prove it once and for all, so I stuck a tape recorder, pressed record, stuck it behind the Christmas tree, and left it on hoping that I would hear whoever was gonna place those presents there…and I forgot to plug it in.”
Brad Paisley really gets into the holiday rush as a last-minute shopper. (:33)
“I’m pretty last-minute. Most guys are, I think, are like me. You just don’t invest enough, you don’t think ahead and plan it. I really do end up somewhere like the mall or something on the 24th. It’s a shame. It’s really a waste of what should be a fun day, ’cause you know, here I am scrambling around going, ‘Oh, I think they’ll like that.’ They may have never heard of it, and I don’t know what it is necessarily, but let’s buy it! And I could give it to somebody. (laughs) You end up buying all these things, and it’s just a waste.”
Eight-year-old Brad Paisley actually had his mind set on other Christmas gifts the year he got his first guitar from his grandfather. (1:06)
“That’s just like my kids now and any other kid. Your priorities are…all they care about, I know, is the right toy. They get obsessed with a certain toy. They might get into Batman or Cars or Transformers, and for those weeks where that is the focus, they save-up a little money, or when they have a birthday or anything come up, all that matters is one strange thing. They’ll get it in their mind that they need a certain Transformer, you know, that they need Starscream — and that’s a lot like me. I’m that way. I mean, I get obsessed with things, and maybe that’s why I have such a good work ethic. I think somebody who’s obsessive that way can really work hard. But for me, at eight years old, it was, you know, the Millennium Falcon or Battlestar Galactica or something. It wasn’t a guitar. I knew I was getting a guitar ’cause he had told me he was gonna do that, but, you know, I was not that excited about it.”
Carrie Underwood
Carrie Underwood remembers a family tradition that brought joy to others. (:18)
“When my grandmother was still alive, we would all go to my grandmother’s house on Christmas Eve, and we would go to the nursing home, the local nursing home, and sing Christmas carols up and down the halls and pass out little bags with goodies in ’em. And that’s something I’ll always remember.”
Carrie Underwood talks about her family’s caroling visits to a local nursing home. (:34)
“We would walk up and down the halls and sing Christmas carols. I mean, we sang, ‘Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,’ we sang ‘Silent Night,’ we sang, just all those songs that everybody knows, and it was just a really cool thing that we did. I really wish we still did it. We quit when my grandma got sick, but it was just one of those things that, you know, a lot of people that…it’s really easy to forget about people during that time of year, ’cause there’s so much going on, and it was a really cool thing that we did. We’d go to the nursing home and bring a little Christmas cheer with us.”
Carrie Underwood loves the traditional Christmas songs. (:08)
“When I think of Christmas, you know, I’m a very traditional person. I love traditional hymns. I love traditional Christmas songs. It’s just…it’s what makes me think of Christmas.”
Carrie Underwood says that “O Holy Night” is her favorite Christmas carol. (:15)
“‘O Holy Night’ — it’s my favorite Christmas song. I mean, it just talks about the grandness of that night, and it’s just, it’s very powerful. And it’s powerful singing it, and to me, it’s always been very powerful listening to it.”
Carrie Underwood recalls “The First Noel” as an easy song to learn when she was little. (:37)
“I remember singing ‘The First Noel,’ like, in our church, our little children’s church choir (laughs), and that’s one of those songs that you know ’cause there’s not a lot of words goin’ on (laughs), you know, anybody can sing along…’Noel’…you know, it’s just one of those that everybody can — whether you know what it means or not — and I just remember as a kid singing it and having no clue what it meant. I just knew I didn’t have to remember a whole lot to be able to sing it. And now that I’m older and can put a prettier touch on it, and actually sit back and think about it, and it’s just one of those that has a different meaning to me as an adult.”
Carrie Underwood talks about the magic of “Do You Hear What I Hear.” (:23)
“It’s very magical…and it also talks about things that, as a child, you would understand, such as ‘dancing in the night with a tail as big as a kite.’ Or ‘voice as big as the sea’ — stuff that all kids know. So it’s a really good story. It has a lot of good visuals with it. It’s just one of those that it’s just fun to sing — it’s really nice, it brings a smile to my face when I sing it.”
Carrie Underwood never had to wonder what she was getting for Christmas. (:24)
“One thing you learn in my family is that my mother is…um…a blabbermouth. And ever since I was little, I have known every single Christmas present I have ever gotten, ever. I’m not one for surprises, and yeah, I’ve always known my presents before Christmas. But I didn’t have to, like, sneak around and find out what they were, ’cause Mom told me.”
Carrie Underwood remembers a great gift — and one that still has her wondering. (:11)
“I remember gettin’ a Teddy Ruxpin when I was little, and I just thought that that was the coolest thing ever. I got a tent one year, too. I don’t really know what that was about. I don’t quite remember asking Santa for a tent.”
Carrie Underwood is not a fan of Christmas shopping. (:12)
“I hate shopping for Christmas presents. I kind of wander around aimlessly in malls and stores and whatnot, thinking, ‘Now what would…fill in the blank…what would this person like? Hmmm. Oh, yeah, that looks like her! Okay, I’ll get that.'”
Trisha Yearwood
Knowing Trisha Yearwood’s affinity for the kitchen, if you think that her house probably smells great at Christmastime, you’d be right! (:48)
“Our house does smell amazing during Christmas — and it looks amazing during Christmas. It’s my favorite holiday, so I am that girl that decorates over the top. I can’t wait to get the Christmas tree up, and I try to put it up…I used to be the girl that said, ‘Man, they just shouldn’t be talkin’ about Christmas before we get through Thanksgiving,’ but now I want to put up the tree the day after Thanksgiving because I want as much time — you put a lot of time into decorating your house, you know, I mean, we’d string garland and lights and the whole bit — and I want ’em to be up as long as they can. And yes, I do everything from obviously the holiday meals to my friends and I have what we call a ‘cookie party,’ and everybody comes over, and we bake our favorite cookies. And so there’s tons of mixers goin’, tons of ovens goin’, and tons of cookies. And then we all make plates and trade out and give ’em away and stuff. So, it does smell good at my house during the holidays.”
Chris Young
Chris Young loves Christmastime. (:16)
“Christmas is definitely my favorite time of year, like everybody has their favorite holiday, and some people like the summer…I’ve always liked when it’s cold outside, just, since I was a kid. And Christmas is one of those times where that’s the one time of year I block off. I mean, I have to be home for Christmas.”
Chris Young shares his family’s tree-decorating tradition. (:35)
“I’ve got traditions at my house. Every year, me and my family always make a point, we all put up the tree together at my parents’ house. Whether I put up a tree in my house or, you know, anybody else in our family does it, we always put up a tree at their house. And it’s funny, ’cause we have the boxes and boxes of ornaments that don’t match, but somehow, once they all get on the tree, it looks like we were meant to do that. So, you know, we’ve got ornaments from when my parents were kids and when we were kids, and you talk about that when you’re hangin’ stuff on the tree. And it’s just a time to really remember everything that you’ve done and be with your family. And it’s one of my favorite times of year…it just is.”
Chris Young says he has one holiday fave that’s must-watch viewing at Christmastime. (:13)
“I have to watch the Claymation Rudolph, or it’s not Christmas. That was like our Christmas movie around the house. You know, some people have the Charlie Brown Christmas and Frosty the Snowman. I can miss all of those. As long as I see the Claymation Rudolph one time, I’m good.”
In his childhood, Chris Young had some concerns about Bumble, the Snow Monster in his favorite holiday classic, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. (:26)
“I was actually afraid of the abominable snowman when I was a kid. Like, there’s that whole scene where — which is not scary at all now — but the scene where he comes up over the top of the mountains and his hair flies up and he looks just as goofy as can be, like, as a grown man sayin’ that, but as a kid, I was scared to death of the abominable snowman. And anytime I got left in the car by myself, like if my mom went into the shopping center, it was wintertime, I was afraid the abominable snowman was gonna come get me. It was terrible.”
Christmas is Chris Young’s favorite time of year. (:04)
“It’s just such a cool thing to be able to be home for Christmas and, you know, it’s just my favorite time of year. I love it.”
Chris Young remembers his childhood Christmas mornings. (:38)
“My parents pretty much just knew to wake up at six in the mornin’, five in the morning, like as soon as the sun comes up, ’cause that was the rule. My parents told me, they were like, ‘Okay, now you know you can’t come down and open presents until the sun comes up.’ As soon as I saw pretend light through my window, I was downstairs, and I was goin’, ‘Can we…I wanna go open stuff!’ And of course, then my parents did the whole thing of ‘Okay, wait, we’ve got to videotape you.’ So they would make us wait, and we would start getting all of our presents into piles for us to open. So, it was definitely…we were just like every other kid at Christmas — me and my sister both. We went nuts.”
Chris Young is all about the holiday tunes. (:21)
“I’m a Christmas music junkie, big time. Can’t do it ’til after Thanksgiving, but like, as soon as Thanksgiving is over, I have Christmas CDs in my car. I…like, the Christmas tree goes up, we start decoratin’ the house — I’m bad. That’s probably one of my favorite times of the year, and so, yeah, if you, like, pull up next to me at a stop light, and it’s in December, I’m probably, like, blarin’ out some Christmas music, singin’ along with it.”
Chris Young reveals a surprising holiday-music influence. (:35)
“The first Alan Jackson Christmas record. That record and The Beach Boys‘ Christmas Album — if I hear that, that means Christmas, as far as music goes. That was the two CDs or two tapes that were like, ‘Oh, it’s Christmastime,’ ’cause that’s what my mom would play in the car, everywhere. I know both of those CDs front to back. (laughs) And I know that sounds odd ’cause most people…I don’t think I’ve ever given an interview before where I’m like, you know, they go, ‘Who are one of your influences?’ and I go, ‘The Beach Boys!’ But those two records absolutely are…those come on, and it’s Christmastime.”
Chris Young talks about some of the ingredients that help to inspire the holiday spirit. (:40)
“I think it’s just, you know, the weather’s gettin’ colder, everybody’s thinkin’ about gettin’ gifts for their families, so it makes ’em a little more in tune for other people if they’re…if it’s a time for them they really need help or they need, you know, money. A lot of people donate this time of year. It’s also a time of celebration. You know, everybody’s wrappin’ up the work time. Now it’s just like, all right, we’re gonna put it back into ‘coast’ and kind of hang with family and make good food and just have a fun party atmosphere to celebrate what we’ve done this year and get ready for next year. And that sense of togetherness, I think it does; it allows people to be the person I think they’d want to be more often, year-round.”
Chris Young loves Christmastime. (:15)
“It’s one of my favorite times of year. I’m completely unapologetic about that. I am a Christmas guy; I love Christmas. I love everything about it. I love giving gifts. I love surprising people with gifts. It’s just a really, really great vibe around the holidays, with everybody.”